Solar energy - Storage breakthrough at MIT?

Ever wonder how we can make solar energy available at night? Batteries are too expensive and inefficient, so until now people have been proposing beaming power down from collectors in orbit, where the sun always shines. Also expensive.

So it's exciting to read about a potential breakthrough at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the project leader says it's easy and cheap:

Requiring nothing but abundant, non-toxic natural materials, this discovery could unlock the most potent, carbon-free energy source of all: the sun. "This is the nirvana of what we've been talking about for years," said MIT's Daniel Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT and senior author of a paper describing the work in the July 31 issue of Science.

Plastic oh no ban, industry says

Don't celebrate the Seattle 20¢ plastic bag fee/styrofoam ban just yet, canvassers are gathering signatures on a petition that would put a bag fee repeal on the November ballot.

Who could possibly want a repeal of the fee? Why, the plastics industry. Of course, they call it a tax:

Stuff I noticed in France

It's good to be home, lame attempts by Danny Westneat to whip up a tax revolt in Seattle notwithstanding. I see America continues to be economically bloodied yet unbowed.

Nonetheless, having had two weeks to see the land of Binoche, escargot and Sarkozy up close and personal, I have to say that France has it all over America in many important ways.

Cityscape. Tired of high speed, high volume traffic in city neighborhoods and on arterials? Then stop facilitating it! France has expanded its freeways, but retains the traditional configurations of its surface streets in cities and villages.

Paper nor plastic? - Part Deux

The Seattle City Council today approved the measure imposing a 20 cent fee on plastic and paper shopping bags, to encourage the adoption of reusable bags. The council also passed a ban on use of foam containers by businesses that serve food.

The City will distribute reusable bags, and the per-bag fee will start in January 2009. Then the choice of whether to pay the fee is up to the individual shopper. As the next mayor of Seattle, Richard Conlin, says: "You only have to pay it if you choose not to use reusable bags."

The foam ban has three phases. This coming January, restaurants and the like will have to stop using polystyrene and styrofoam. Then a year after that, all other plastic containers and utensils must be replaced by biodegradables.

The enemy of my enemy is Light Rail

Why transit innovators should embrace trains (and buses) too

On a recent trip to the Bay Area I was reminded why I like trains almost as much as Personal Rapid Transit.

After only a 5-10 minute wait I was able to take BART from the Oakland Coliseum/Airport station to Dublin/Pleasanton (site of Hacienda Business Park, Oracle, etc.) in only 24 minutes, including temporary slowdowns for construction. The journey, including stops at three intervening stations, covered about 17 miles -- an average speed of 42 mph. The return trip was similarly fast and trouble-free.

Yes, I know all the pro-PRT arguments -- PRT would have been faster; PRT would have been on-demand and nonstop; PRT would have been more energy efficient. All true, but that's not my point here.